Journal of an unnamed mage
by GenShadow
Summary: A journal written by an unnamed man in the 203rd mage battalion. A story detailing the path taken by those who follow Tanya and the difficulties they had to overcome in order to wear their name proudly.
1. The war begins

Entry #1 1923

Our neighbor, the Legadonian Entente has declared war on us today, how foolish of them to wage battle against us. I assume this war will be short since our Fatherland is the strongest force on the continent and I am but one of many mages that is a part of its strength. I shall be keeping this journal to iterate my glorious moment in service to our Empire during the war.

In the worst case scenario, my journal will be nothing but memories of a man bidding his time in the eastern regional army, if the Lord has any mercy for me, he shall deploy me to the front lines.

* * *

Entry #3 1923

The Lord has yet to show us favor but we remain strong. The entire eastern army is eager to deploy! We are aware that only a portion of us will be sent but we all pray for it to be our own selves. There is only good news from the front, after a strong repel from our Norden border troops we are now organizing a strong offense. As a mage I can only salute my comrades who have held air superiority this entire time while the infantry organizes itself and those that have allowed our border defenses to destroy the first army sent by the Entente.

* * *

Entry #7 1924

Being in the garrison the entire time can be rough, I was already missing my wife's cooking back home but now I dream of it every night, the ration's do not exactly taste the best ever since the war began. I simply wish for a decent stew with a bread i could actually dip in, right now i guess i could use the bread as a bowl...

* * *

Entry #12 1924

Our offense was a great news to us soldiers, even with a reduction in personnel here due to being deployed we would proudly hold our line. Unfortunately that was short lived since the bastards from the Republic have declared their own full offensive on our flanks! They dare attack the Empire while we are launching an offense in the North. As much as I applaud the tactical decision made I must simply shun them for such a rash decision. A war with the Empire will simply not benefit them in any way, even if we continue our Norden campaign, we will not fall to the Repulican troops!

* * *

Entry # 37 1925

I do not know if it was by the will of God or sheer luck of things but it seems my chance has appeared to help our Fatherland. Today all the mages have received a message from the department of General staff, a recruitment notice. Here is how it reads out, I am keeping my copy for motivational purposes:

Notice from department of service

Imperial army general staff

Always lead him, never abandon him

Always walk the unbeaten path, never yield

Always be on the battlefield

All for the sake of victory

 **Mages wanted**

For hazardous battlefield

Small wages

Long months of gloomy bullet storm

Constant danger

Safe return doubtful

Honor and recognition in case of success

General staff organizing committee

I simply cannot express my joy into words for my journal, only that I thank you God for this glorious opportunity to serve my homeland. The words used clearly shows that a grizzled veteran is in charge, one with experience and knowledge of the front lines that you can only dream about. Just imagine how much service I could be to our Fatherland in this unit.

I have submitted my application almost instantly, along with all my brethren's who also dream about being on the front lines for our country. Too long have we waited on the sidelines of this war, we shall wait NO LONGER!

* * *

Entry #41 1925

One would not believe the joy I felt when I learned that my application has accepted and I am to journey to the capital Berun to view the unit itself. I am to pack my things immediately! My wife would be so happy to hear that I can help our Fatherland proactively like this. I wish I could visit her before but I simply must make myself ready as soon as I can. I shall return to my journal once I can calm down and with the good news of this new unit!

* * *

Entry #42

I am speechless.

It was something I simply did not expect. It started off in a normal way where I joined with my wing mate and we reached the room for the Unit. Once inside although, was a small room with only a simple desk and a man named Colonel Turner. The thing that bothered me almost instantly was the lack of windows which was odd for a room on the edge of a building riddled in them.

We were told a few things but I was unable to listen, something felt very odd in this room, considering the absence of windows it was rather well illuminated. My wing mate brought me back to my senses when the colonel was asking if both of us understood to go to an airport. My mate agreed almost instantly but I could not, the voice was not coming from the man in front of us, not from his throat at least. It was off, as if coming from my left.

I simply took a half step in the direction of the wall, tried to feel it but it faded away. In all honesty, I wanted the wall back. Now I was faced with a blonde little girl who was staring right through me with her chilling blue eyes. Mere words could not explain the mixture of emotions I was feeling, confusion? Anger? Doubt? Embarrassed? Fear? I do not know, but this child in front of me, in uniform was the source of it all and I will never forget what she told me.

"Congratulations, you may actually be of some use to the Fatherland."

That grin she made, was most definitely not humane and I could not say anything. I later learned that she was the one in charge of the new unit, organizer Tanya von Degurechaff, a living recipient of the Silver Wings Assault medal. Here I was expecting a man in his forties, grizzled veteran with scars smoking a cigar that could tell us all about war. Instead we have a child, is this irony? Or simply the will of God giving us a bad joke to make a child fight this war. How cruel he must be.

* * *

Author's Note

This is more of an experiment by me to see if people would be interesting in reading a journal from a member of the 203rd battalion. I have read stories all trying to invade the current one with their own custom character or create an ending and what not.

I wished to take a different approach and tell the parallel story about those who gave a lot for their land without help. Just man and woman who fought hard and survived ridiculous things considering they were follow Tanya into suicide missions.

If you wish for more give me a shout in a PM or review, would love to hear people's opinion. If you think it stupid, also give me a shout.

Thank you guys and gals.

Edit Dec 10/2017

Made some changes to give it more meat, i realize it is nowhere near enough but that is because i fear giving too much information, my character is supposed to be nameless, no one in specific. If you can trace it to someone in LN, Manga or show, i have failed, that is my belief so I am trying to tiptoe around. Worry not the chapters will be updated soon with a rant as to why it was late.

Thank you very much for your patience everyone


	2. End of life as recruits

Entry #43 1925

From what I have heard, it seems the failure rate of the test I undertook was incredibly high. I thought it was a simple illusion/-/ but it seems many of my comrades could not figure it out. I am… uncertain about how to feel about this. Do we have a lack of training in the Imp/-/erial Mages? Is there something we missed in our education or was the Captain taking it easy on my group?

I have many questions but I cannot answer any single one of them. I have heard there was a commotion a few days ag/-/o where someone protested his failure. I could not acquire more information other than him storming into the office and walked out a few minutes lat/-/er with his shoulders close to the ground.

The orders were simple though after passing the test. We are to standby in the capital until further notice. I can /-/only assume it is until they finish testing all candidates but I must say this barrack is not filling with mages very fast. I can/-/ only wait.

* * *

Entry #44 1925

We are finally underway for training and adaptation together in order to make an actual battalion. I count roughly a hundred men and wome/-/n I suppose, was never very good at counting people especially in crowds. Let us just say there are a lot of people. It took a fair bit to pick every/-/ mage here, roughly two weeks after I made it in give or take a few days. Let us hope the training is just as simple as the test. I was already a full-/-/fledged soldier in the Eastern Army so another round of training as a recruit would not be very efficient for someone such as myself; I am certain it a/-/pplies to almost everyone give or take a few recruits.

* * *

Entry #45 1925

First day of training… a full day of high altitude flying… we spent almost fourteen hours in the air at the maximum height of six thousand /-/feet. This was a grueling task, I do not care how experienced or strong one is, this exercise would deplete them completely. We have surprisingly n/-/ice barracks up in these mountains, the Alpen I believe there were called. You can even hear second lieutenant Serebryakov enjoying t/-/

* * *

Entry # 46 1925

THIS CAPTAIN IS INSANE!  
SHE BLOODY BLEW UP OUR BARRACKS, SENT US FLYING AND THEN TELLS US MAKE A HIKE TO THE NEXT LOCATION ACROSS THE BLOODY MOUNTAINS IN FORTY EIGHT HOURS!  
This small hike as she so described it, includes climbing cliffs, passing through caves, tiptoe on the high mountains so as not to fall, a short drift down a river which for the record is absolute madness but very exciting. The best paddle we had was the shovel Second Lieutenant Serebryakov managed to save from the explosion. The camping part was the easiest thing although the howls at night did not make us comfortable

I lost a solid 2 pages of my journal because of my pen ripping through the page and the ink spill, that's not accounting the physical damage from the explosion, I should count myself lucky I managed to keep it on me during the explosion. Still it makes me angry to know some of my previous entries got ripped in the process, might have to remove the pages and write it all in new ones.

* * *

Entry # 47 1925

Her smile… is what nightmares are made of…

* * *

Entry #48 1925

I apologize for my previous entry… it was all I could write… I simply did not have the heart to write anything else… We finished the hike without issues and made it to the checkpoint within the forty eight hour limit… but… all that awaited us was a small child smiling at us…

It broke my heart… no I was not sad at a love break… I was simply filled with despair…

She decided since we succeeded her hike without magic, the artillery division did not get to shoot at us… thus she decided to let us practice position defense against them… the worst part? It was in late afternoon and the artillery had enough shells for thirty six hours… count the hours without proper rest… maybe a total of seven? I am not sure, first the barracks blew up after fourteen hours of flight, then a full sixteen hours of hike, seven hours of rest and then another eight of hike… Yeah I am tired alright…

WHO IN GODS NAME CALLS THIS TRAINING?!  
THIS IS ABUSE OF HUMANS!

We have somehow survived the bombardment of live shells on our position, had to trust each and every single person to not fail else my buttocks would be on fire. I am… exhausted… both physically and mentally but at the very least I know I can trust the people around me now. We have survived some pretty fucked up shit…

* * *

Entry # 49 1925

We have received orders for a second hike… we actually had people drop out; I honestly do not blame them… I have considered doing it myself it's just I missed the call for it. I was too tired and couldn't hear them asking properly and thus I was dragged into the second hike. I want to go back home.

This second hike was less natural and more military… there were planes scouting the area, special scouts with dogs trying to smell us coming and actual patrols of troops… In a way it was easier but any less attention would cost us dear I can only assume.

* * *

Entry #50 1925

Orders are simple… SURVIVE… plain and simple… that is all I can do now… I don't even have enough energy to spare to write in this journal anymore…

All I can say… is that the Captain is truly terrifying for a girl her age and size… I am very happy my wife was not this way else I do not think I would have survived my marriage so long.

* * *

Author's Note

Hello everyone, Gen here, it's been a long while and I am very sorry about that, tl:dr of it is I changed employment, changed town, been without internet for roughly 3 weeks (no internet November challenge is now complete) and then got very insecure I was writing up to everyone's expectations. Anyways am back, will keep it going and a Merry Christmas to you all.

Hope I managed to please people here, let me know in a DM or review

Also yes it was COMPLETELY intentional to break works to fit /-/ inside the text, take it as the pen ripping through but lucky you guys i did not remove letters, I am sure you guys can still read it properly lol.

BIG SHOUTOUT TO FT-MAGE (Forlorn Story Teller on ffnet, or loli-mage on discord) for the cover image. A great person who helped me get this story assembled and released.


	3. 203rd Mage Flight Wing

Entry #51 1925

It has been several days since I have written anything in my journal… to be honest I simply did not have the energy to do so. I have questioned my sanity so many times I would not even know how to count anymore.

This little girl… the Captain… I simply do not understand how she does what she does. No normal human beings would treat their soldiers as packs of meat to be smashed around for amusement purposes. She looks adorable on the outside as a human girl but the insides are probably something inhumane. Oh God if you exist, please make it so when I do have a child, it won't be a girl like this.

To put some context… we are now a few days after our… counter interrogation training, to which I must mention was at checkpoint 2 after the second hike. She greeted us with a pure, honest, innocent and gentle smile from ear to ear, but the cavalry whip in her hand told another story.

Before I go on, I must simply commend Second Lieutenant Serebryakov for being the strongest amongst us all. She has not broken down a single time during the entire training and when we reached this point she also followed instructions without hesitations. We were ordered to strip off her clothing, and I mean all of it, no exception and no gender discrimination. It was really cold in the mountains and we were told that if we wanted to warm up we were welcome to another job in them. Needless to say, no one took that offer.

What followed… will probably mark us all for life and the one after that until the end of time for sure. This level of cruelty, it would probably make the Devil himself shudder at the thought of it. I believe my mind is voluntarily cutting off my memories of what happened, and I agree with it completely. A little 10 year old girl whipping grown men into submission through sheer cruelty and brutality. Her vocabulary was extensive and quite honestly one of the most intimidating part of the whole training. She was extremely gifted in taunting and demeaning us. What kind of twisted god is out there that allowed such an innocent girl to become like this.

* * *

Entry #52 1925

The scars on our body had not healed, our minds broken, frozen to the bone, we were ordered to make a third hike. Our Captain is something else alright. This time the order was to climb the Alpen Mountain's ridge which is renowned to push even the best of us to the limits. Exhaustion could be seen on every face except for the Captain which was following us on the side this time.

Now I will admit I do not entirely recall what happened, only that someone screamed that rocks were falling, or avalanche I am not too sure. All I know is that we scrambled and stuck to the cliff to prevent dying to it. Well that was the orders given by people but all I remember is the mountain going dark. Then there was this huge blast of energy hitting my head hard with clear orders:  
"Why are you resting?! Get back on your feet!"  
Before I knew it, I was apologizing and got back up. I do not remember what I did, why I did, it was only a reflex of survival. I came to roughly an hour later on the march and noticed a similar pattern happening to others. I must again commend Second Lieutenant Serebryakov for her strength, she fell down cliffs, almost got overran by an avalanche but every time she would just get a wakeup call from the Captain and keep going as if nothing happened.

* * *

Entry #53 1925

Training continued, this time less physically abusive but more as actual mage training. We were all pretty relieved by this change of pace. Although we were faced with a new challenge altogether; most of us have grown used to the old Forker models of computational orbs yet the Captain delivered us a new model, the type-97 from Elinium arms. This one had specs that went off the charts but the biggest thing was that we had to grow accustomed to it since it had a very different system for processing mana that were simply not used to.

It was great to manipulate cutting edge but it was a very mentally exhausting task. We suddenly had to make a habit of being combat ready over eight thousand feet in the skies, deploy optimal decoys without warnings and learn erratic maneuvers without crashing into each other. There was… a good piece of time where many precedents were established for that last one.

* * *

Entry #54 1925

As the training was reaching its conclusion we could all feel more cheerful for some odd reason, maybe because we survived the pits of hell, maybe because the Captain looks pleased or maybe because we have finally reached her level of madness. My bet is on the last one, I mean some of the guys were wondering how much of a beauty she would be if she were older. Those guys obviously don't have wives if they are currently asking questions about how a kid would look like when they are older.

We had many names for the Captain during training, none of which I would be braved enough to write down and leave solid proof of. Although now we share a feeling amongst us that none of us want her as a wife due to her cruel treatment of adults and her personality.

Now we simply accept her as a Hero Vanguard for the Empire, probably chosen by God to guide us to victory. She is pretty devout as a believer, praying when she casts spells and always wears her rosary. The realm of her spells also defies reasons, we have seen crazy stuff during training and it is most definitely not in the realm of what humans can do.

We are the wing that will act as the vanguards to the Apostle of God

 _scratchI must note that her personality still matches that of a Devil more than an apostle but her powers are not evil so she is an Apostle with a bad personality/scratch_

* * *

Entry #57 1925

We have been deployed as a unit to the South East, we have received little information other than just a live deployment to a regional army section for training. We are to have the Brass observe our training and judge our accomplishments. Cannot say I am looking forward to it but we do not get a choice in this unit. Our leader got promoted to Major so she can officially lead the battalion and it seems to have just powered her up in terms of demands of us.

* * *

Entry #58 1925

The last forty eight hours were something else. It started off as planned with the training demonstration to the Brass. The routine flight did not please the Major since she started shooting at us even when we were flying over eight thousand feet. Good thing we practiced randomized evasion since it prevented a lot of unfortunate accidents of collisions in front of the Brass like what went on in training. We were hoping that even when she was shooting forty eight different people her accuracy would be poor but on the contrary she is beyond human and thus had pinpoint accuracy to our positions. I deployed some decoys to try and get some slack but I guess I shouldn't be surprised she saw through them and still aimed at my real body.

Well that was all fun and dandy but it did not take long for us to receive orders to abort and assemble as the two-oh-third flight mage wing. It seems our neighbours, the Kingdom of Dacia, did not appreciate our presence while we were already busy on two fronts. What is the world coming to?

We were supplying with live ammunition and complete gear as the Major was in the HQ. She came back surprisingly happy, well considering how she explained it is her birthday I can imagine why but a new front is not exactly a good present. Although her instructions of it as a live fire exercise left us perplex for a good moment as we set out. It did not take long to pass the border troops who were retreating from the three divisions of enemy troops. At that point in time I almost wished I could join them, that is until we all realized what the Major meant by live fire exercise.

I was stationed in the second company of the flight who falls under direction of Deputy Commander Weiss. All companies were to attack except for the first that controlled the air space, at least that's how the theory goes considering how we had no enemy mages to fight. We rained hell upon the invaders without mercy or hesitation. We threw everything from optical spells to explosions to break their lines and anything that still moved. I am afraid to say that I agree with the Major, this is no war, just a live fire exercise; we are simply picking off their troops without problems.

Well that was how it went until the enemy entered some sort Anti-Air defense strangely similar to the Republican volley fire doctrine. Lieutenant Weiss ordered us to circumvent and maintain distance from the formations to pick them off. Not a single one of us wanted to argue at that point, it made perfect sense, no need to rush in and receive volley fire to take us all down. Apparently the Major had a different idea since it took little time for her adjutant, lieutenant Serebryakov to show up and summon him. We had orders to continue the assault but we all watched as she sliced his helmet off before leading him into taking down the formations by herself.

Which is absolutely ridiculous, taking headfirst a formation made to shoot down Named mages by the Republican forces. Needless to say but no one wanted to face her if we circumvented another formation and thus we continued the assault until we received orders to cover the Major as she rushed to their HQ. Well probably the depth of madness reached us as we actually landed to greet them, the Major even asked to see their Visa of visit. Naturally anyone would be angry at said insult and thus we had no other choice but to shoot them all down.

* * *

Entry #59 1925

After destroying the Vanguard of the Dacian army we actually flew straight to their capital. Normally a long distance flight would tire out mages but after the training given by the Major this was almost like a light jog in the morning. I may be wrong but I believe the Major called this part of the mission a nighttime urban air raid on their Capital. I have little understanding of the term since it is the first I hear of it but considering she went to the War College and not myself I will simply attribute it to her higher education.

Something all troops will agree on is that abandoning the element of surprise is stupid in times of war but since it was in the enemy capital the Major decided the Laws took precedence. While that is respectable in a war it is odd to say the least. She gave the order to her adjutant to make the warning but if talking about the enemy dropping their guard, we all silently stared at the Major. God bless her intelligence since she picked up on it. What followed us is a scene no one will ever know except us. She used a true childish voice to fool the enemy and we were the only witnesses. It was adorable. Although she was extremely mad at everyone after the fact, we were pretty much intimidated into never talking about it.

We followed suit and destroyed the enemy factory with a long range optical sniping spell with the Major in the center of it. It is draining but very powerful, it took only a single salvo to destroy the Factory. Also to our biggest surprise the Major screamed "TAMAYA" once the secondary explosions took over. I do not understand what it means, not anyone of us did as I looked around to see many confused faces.

And that is how the two-oh-third flight single handled fought back, destroyed the vanguard and ruined the Kingdom of Dacia's hope of fighting this war they believed they had a chance in. This is the true madness of our unit led on by an Apostle of God.

* * *

Author's Note

Hello everyone, Gen here again, hope everyone had their Christmas in a joyful mood, I know I did since I got my copy of the first volume of light novel in English.

I must note to everyone that this will probably conclude within 2 more chapter updates since I am trying to keep it up with manga and Light Novel translations. I am not going with the anime on this one due to lack of details. No it doesn't mean it will be complete only that updates will be every 4-6 months depending on content release.

I will also be working on another fanfiction coming soon with an OC, I have searched long and hard for an alternative for fanfic but seriously there is like nothing other than changing the novel end, an alternate course midway through or an OC at first. Anyways look forward to that since it will not be a journal that time around lol.

Look forward to the next chapter and happy new year's!


End file.
